Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Marketing Opportunities: Home Runs, Singles, and Low Hanging Fruit

Introduction to Marketing Opportunities

A viable marketing opportunity
should be justifiable as worthy of pursuit. It is important to determine
whether the marketing opportunity is a home run, single, or low hanging fruit. Additionally,
it is important to evaluate all marketing opportunities and then come to an
informed decision based on your research as to which would be the best idea.
Projecting whether the endeavor will reflect positively or negatively upon the
company as well as determining how significant of a financial improvement the
opportunity will result in is optimal before making any type of commitment.

Developing New Products

­­­­When a company like Apple
creates a new product, it can almost be guaranteed that people will want to buy
it before they are even sure of what it is. That’s because Apple has a long
history of surprising people with their endless innovation in their industry.
They continually produce must have products. Creating new additions to your
product line can be one of the best ways to add substantial increased revenue
to your company’s balance sheets. “Introducing items that complement what you
already sell can generate new sales and improve customer satisfaction” (Spors,
2011).
The right product could turn around any business in the midst of failure.
Product development can be a risky venture however. Research and development
can tie up a lot of a company’s capital and could prevent them from being able
to pay the liabilities that they have already obligated themselves to. If any
other good opportunities come along, they may have to pass them up because they
have no more money left on the side. If the venture ended out being a bust, and
not resulting in any profitable new items for you company, all of the money
spent on research and development would have been for nothing and you company
would be right back where they started with less capital to allocate for other
marketing opportunities.

A home run
is an opportunity that provides a business potentially momentous increase in
growth. They require a significant amount of the company’s capital and tend to
be rather large in scale. A home run is the riskiest type of marketing
opportunity. This type of idea would be classified as a home run venture
because it is very risky, takes up a lot of capital, can take a long time to
develop and doesn’t have the highest chances of being a success. A new product
could create significant return on investment to the business and would be a
positive reflection on the company to current investors and customers because
it would make them appear to be innovative and poised for growth. If they
failed, the opposite would occur. Investors would not see them as positively as
they once had because they would be wasting capitals on ideas that they were
unable to implement. If successful, it would result in a significant financial
improvement. I would not recommend this type of a venture to a company that was
not well established and able to dedicate a significant amount of their working
capital to a side venture such as product development.

Upgrade the Business’s Technology

If a company like Blockbuster was
able to upgrade their technology into something even more high tech than what
they were already using, it would almost guarantee that they would be able to
more efficiently and effectively create their product. Blockbuster has been
stuck in an in-store rut and hasn’t been able to make a successful move to
online rentals like Netflix has. Upgrading technology would be known in the
business world as a single. Singles come with significantly less risk than
homeruns. They usually don’t require as much time and are more inexpensive yet
have an attractive return. Charan (2006)
explains that singles can increase revenues and “build a growth mind-set
throughout the business, so that when the opportunity for a home run does come
along, you’ll be better prepared to take advantage of it” (p. 28). Using
operational and investigative metrics is the best way to improve the
fundamentals of a business. The risks of this type of venture would be that the
new technology does not end up being a good fit for the business, in which case
they could revert back to what they were previously using. Depending on how
much more efficient the technology made the company, it could have a
substantial positive impact on the company’s finances because it could enable
them to make more products in less time. It would also most likely reflect
positively on the company because it shows that they are making strides to
improve the way that they do business.

Developing a More Inexpensive Way of Packaging Products

Developing
new ways of packaging current products to save money can be a great idea for
your bottom line. If Under Armour could find a way to package its products more
inexpensively it could save them and there customers money. Anything that makes
the cost of selling your product less can be benficial for the consumers that
are buying your products because you can get it to them for less. This type
idea has very minimal risk and development most likely requires very litle
capital. It is known as a low hanging fruit. Goldsmith (1997) quotes Muller,
DeBettignies & Co. as saying that “low-hanging
fruit is something visible - bad quality, unnecessary overtime, wasted
materials -- that we can get our hands on right away, something that doesn't
require an accounting degree to understand.” But company always looking for the
low hanging fruit and not look elsewhere to further grow their companies are
anything but innovative. They spend most of their efforts of trying to save and
not thinking out of the box looking for ideas that will grow the company.Pollick (2003) describes “fruit contained on
these lower branches may be not be as ripe or attractive as the fruit on higher
limbs, but it is usually more abundant and easier to harvest.”It can be thought of negatively because a
company can be seen understanding that the lower hanging fruit is not very high
quality but goes after it anyways.

Analysis, Summary & Conclusion

I would most strongly recommend
Blockbuster utilizing new technology to make their business processes more
efficient and effective. It would show that they are making strides to cut
costs and positively impact their bottom line without high risk or the
disadvantage of having to tie up a lot of the working capital. It also keeps
the company from looking like they are doing a lot to grow their company.
Upgrading technology would probably be the best bang for their buck because
more efficient business processes would save money for both the customer and
the consumer without the additional risk of a new product line being unsuccessful.
It would result in the greatest financial improvement for the business in the
least amount of time.